Whole30 - Day One

Hello,

I'm Sean, Nia's husband and the other half of Love & Mumbo Sauce.  Today we started a program called the Whole30.  I know some, if not a majority, of you read that last statement and the first thought that popped into your mind was, what is the Whole30?  Good thing you asked, because I'm about to explain it to you.

The Whole30 is a program that was created by Melissa and Dallas Hartwig, two sports nutritionists.  They've written a book about it entitled “The Whole30: The 30-Day Guide to Total Health and Food Freedom”.  They’ve also appeared on the Dr. Oz show to promote their program, and you know Dr. Oz wouldn’t bring anybody onto his show to promote something if it didn’t work. 

The Whole30 is a thirty-day program in which certain foods are eliminated in an effort to promote healthier eating habits and food choices.  You can essentially call it a thirty-day diet if you want to, however the Hartwigs are trying to make it more of a lifestyle change instead of a thirty-day diet, or as some people refer to diets, a thirty-day odyssey of denying myself the foods that I enjoy.  The Hartwigs promise that the positive benefits, i.e., weight loss, better concentration, more energy and clearer skin, far outweigh the fact that you can’t enjoy that greasy burger with fries or the slice of pizza (things that I know I’ll crave down the line). 

I mentioned weight loss being one of the benefits of the program.  You’d expect to lose weight on a dietary program where your food choices are restricted, but there’s a catch to it.  You can only weigh yourself on the first day of the program.  This is so that you won’t solely focus on how much or how little weight you’ve lost.  The program is about that.  It’s about healthy lifestyle changes and choices.  Nia and I weighed ourselves this morning and can’t weigh ourselves again until the end of the program (our starting weights are between us, God and the scale we stepped on). 

Today for breakfast, we had scrambled eggs with a salsa topping that was made using our new Vitamix blender with a guacamole garnish on the side.  I couldn’t use actual butter to put in the pan to cook the eggs, so I used ghee or clarified butter.  They came out pretty good.  The picture of our breakfast is below; the eggs don’t have the salsa topping on them in the picture.

So far, and I’m speaking for myself right now, I haven’t had any of the cravings for sugar, grease or bread that I normally would have (we can’t have bread either).  I know that I have a sweet tooth and if I could eat pizza and/or cheeseburgers everyday, I’d be good, but what’s good to you isn’t good for you.  I know in the book, it said around the second or third day is when the expected crash and burn will happen.  That’s from your body detoxing itself from all of the bad things that you’ve been putting into it.  So I guess I’ll be feeling cranky and sluggish starting tomorrow; let’s hope not.